Midnight Crown (The Shadow Kissed Series Book 2) by Rebecca L. Garcia

Author:Rebecca L. Garcia [Garcia, Rebecca L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-08-25T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

Niall

Women surrounded me, mortals waiting to be fed on. But they weren’t what I was searching for. They were a taste of the hidden, merely objects to stare at on the way to falling further into obsession.

Gwen sat with her boyfriend. He leaned forward, shoulders slumped as he tried to engage deeper into conversation over a glass of blood, but she wasn’t focused on him. Instead, her gaze flitted around the room, her mind elsewhere. A smirk danced over my mouth.

I had intrigued her, and I wanted to bet her eyes hadn’t truly looked at Astor since. Or I hoped. Rage clawed at my chest, waiting to be unleashed on the pair of them. I didn’t want to care, yet she was so far embedded in my thoughts, there was little room for anything else.

Pinching my eyes shut, I pressed my thumb against my lips, an echo of feeling her against them. She’d only kissed me once, before I’d flown from this castle to forget her, but she haunted me in every woman I saw since. Whenever lavender bloomed, or a hint of vanilla reached me, she was brought back to life through the memory of her scent.

Averting my gaze, I stepped out of the room before they could see me watching. My stomach dipped, and I shook my head, refocusing my thoughts. I had a new desire now. The crown, and the princess who’d give it to me. Gwen wasn’t going to screw me again, not like before.

Half a century passed me before I cared what anyone thought of me. Until I met her. I had been in the castle for mere weeks after Kalon finally brought me here to meet Sargon. His disapproval of his brother’s adoption of me had finally dissolved, and I was welcomed to live just outside the royal ranks. Not a noble, or one of them. I was an outsider, but I made a name for myself quickly. Everyone learned to bow to me without a title or induce my wrath. Political schemes earned me a place in the war meetings, and my ability to read people pushed me close to the top. Especially when the Blood Brothers rose from nothing. Adrian—my ancient friend—helped me build the club.

I felt people out, especially the nobles. Some called it manipulation. I called it survival. I invested my father’s wealth into those I saw becoming somebody and reaped the benefits. I had hundreds of friendships formed under a pretense of who I was to them.

Then there was Gwen.

I met her in the ballroom. Smiling across the room, eyes burning into mine, she consumed me from the beginning. Her doe-eyes blinked slowly when she walked over to me that day. I couldn’t look away from how her hips swayed, her confidence in each step, and her siren gaze. At first, it was purely physical. That quickly changed. Her wit, understanding, and lust for life lured me like a moth to a flame. She saw through me, mostly because we hid in the same darkness.

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